The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode (1992) - YouTube The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode (1992) Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Feb 22, 2010 FULL VIDEO (xvid K-rip) A great philosopher once wrote "Naughty naughty very naughty" Ha ha ha ha ha There's a guy in the place He's got a bittersweet face And he goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode His friends call him Eezer and he is the main geezer And he'll vibe about the place Like no other man could He's refined, sublime, he makes you feel fine Though very much maligned and misunderstood But if you know Eezer he's a real crowd pleaser He's ever so good, he's Ebeneezer Goode You can see that he's mysterious, Mischievious and devious As he circulates amongst the people in the place But once you know he's fun And something of a genius He gives a grin that grows around From face to face to face Backwards and then forwards, Eezer is the geezer who loves to muscle in That's about the time the crowd All shout the name of Eezer As he's kotcheled in the corner, Laughing by the bass bin Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode Has anybody got any veras?

Lovely Ya ha ha ha ha ha Ya ha ha ha ha ha A great philosopher once wrote "Naughty naughty very naughty" Ha ha ha ha ha Ebeneezer Goode, leading light of the scene Know what I mean - see He created the vibe, He takes you for a ride and as if by design The party ignites like he's comin alive He takes you to the top, shakes you all around Then back down, you know as he gets mellow Then as smooth as the groove That is making you move He glides into your mind with a sunny "Hello!" A gentleman of leisure, He's there for your pleasure But go easy on old Eezer He's the love you could lose Extraordinary fellow, like Mr. Punchinello He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused When you're in town and Ebeneezer is around You can sense a presence In the sound of the crowd He gets them all at it, the party starts rocking The people get excited it's time to shout loud Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode Ebeneezer Goode Lyrics The Shamen The Shamen were a Scottish electronic music and psychedelic-influenced band from Aberdeen.

The founding members are Colin Angus (born 24 August 1961), Derek McKenzie (born 27 February 1964) and Keith McKenzie (born 30 August 1961). Peter Stephenson (born 1 March 1962) joined shortly after to take o… more » How we made ... Ebeneezer Goode by the Shamen | Culture | The Guardian How we made ... Ebeneezer Goode by the Shamen 'It was so cleverly written people still don't get it. I mean, come on' Monday 5 March 2012 17.00 EST First published on Monday 5 March 2012 17.00 EST Pinterest Colin Angus, synthesisers and guitars The Shamen started out as a guitar band, gorging on fungal fruits and tuning into psychedelia . As the personnel changed, we played around Scotland and picked up a few tricks with sequencers, samplers and drum machines. By the spring of 1988 we were living in north London squats, going to clubs like Spectrum, the Trip, Base and outdoor events like Sunrise.

This was the heyday of so-called acid house . I remember beaming strangers proffering soft drinks and spliffs dipped in amyl nitrate, snarling pitbulls intimidating saucer-eyed ravers, visionary conversations buzzing in every alcove, hapless promoters being handcuffed and frogmarched off. We'd started using synthesizers and computerised rhythms, and felt we had a synergy of rock, rap and dance. I met Richard [West, DJ Mr C] while sitting cross-legged on the floor of a warehouse. One night, at the Forum, I heard this underworld dandy speaking a pirate-like patois. I found myself thinking, "Who is he? His first name must begin with an E ... Ebeneezer Goode? Now there's a name to conjure with." We had a hoot in the studio. The Mockney-Dickensian flavour came quite naturally from the moniker, and we blended attributes from real-life scenesters we admired. I remember having a right laugh at the thought of this creature lumbering through the gates of pop world, causing amusement and consternation – and so it came to pass.

Mixmag magazine screamed for the single to be banned, although the Beeb seemed quite up for it. Ebeneezer was intended to be celebratory and cautionary, like holding up a distorting mirror to rave culture. The song went ballistic: Uncle Ebeneezer is still looking after me to this day. Richard West, aka Mr C, raps and rhythms I started off as a street rapper; my handle was Mr C, because I supported Chelsea. I first heard about the Shamen in 1988, and in 1991 they asked me to join the band. Colin was a genius songwriter: he'd give me a theme and I'd write the rap lyrics, the drums and the rhythm. He'd do the chords and the synths and the songwriting, and that's how Ebeneezer came along. He told me I was doing the vocals because this character was a cheeky Cockney chappie, and suddenly we had this monster record. I played it to some mates and they were in bits. I thought: "This is a No 1." It was so cleverly written that a lot of people still don't get it.

One way, it's about this guy called Ebeneezer Goode; another way, it's about ecstasy: "E goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode. E's friends call him Eezer, and E is the main geezer and E vibes up the place like no other man could. E's refined, E's sublime, E makes you feel fine." I mean, come on. But even fans think the only E is in the chorus. There was something for everybody. Like Ebenezer Scrooge , it had that old-fashioned Charles Dickens thing that older people could relate to. With the video and the jokiness, kids could like it. If we hadn't become the first band in British pop history to delete a single while it was at No 1 [for four weeks, in September 1992], because it was messing up our release schedule, it may well have sat there for months. When we went on Top of the Pops , I changed the line "Got any salmon?" to "Got any underlay?" and people said, "That's not in the song!

Drug reference!" I was asked about it on Radio 1 by [DJ] Mark Goodier, and said that "salmon" was rhyming slang for salmon and trout – snout, cigarettes – a legal drug that has killed thousands, so I'd changed it. He said: "So what's 'underlay'?" I said it was a gratuitous rug reference. Ebeneezer Goode Lyrics The Shamen The Shamen were a Scottish electronic music and psychedelic-influenced band from Aberdeen. The founding members are Colin Angus (born 24 August 1961), Derek McKenzie (born 27 February 1964) and Keith McKenzie (born 30 August 1961).

Peter Stephenson (born 1 March 1962) joined shortly after to take o… more » The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode Lyrics | SongMeanings The Shamen A great philosopher once wrote Naughty, naughty, very naughty Ha ha ha ha ha There's a guy in the place He's got a bittersweet face And he goes by the name of Ebeneezer Goode His friends call him Eezer and he is the main geezer And he'll vibe about the place like no other man could He's refined, he's sublime, he makes you feel fine Though very much maligned and misunderstood But if you know Eezer he's a real crowd pleaser He's ever so good, he's Ebeneezer Goode You can see that he's mischievous, mysterious and devious When he circulates amongst the people in the place But once you know he's fun and something of a genius He gives a grin that goes around from face to face to face Backwards and then forwards, forwards and then backwards Eezer is the geezer who loves to muscle in That's about the time the crowd all shout the name of Eezer As he's kotcheled in the corner, laughing

 by the bass bin Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode Has anybody got any veras Lovely Ha ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha A great philosopher once wrote Naughty, naughty, very naughty Ha ha ha ha ha Ebeneezer Goode, leading light of the scene Know what I mean, see He created the vibe He takes you for a ride and as if by design The party ignites like he's comin alive He takes you to the top, shakes you all around Then back down, you know as he gets mellow Then as smooth as the groove that is making you move He glides into your mind with a sunny Hello A gentleman of leisure, he's there for your pleasure But go easy on old Eezer he's the love you could lose Extraordinary fellow, like Mr.

Punchinello He's the kind of geezer who must never be abused When you're in town and Ebeneezer is around You can sense a presence in the sound of the crowd He gets them all at it, the party starts rocking The people get excited it's time to shout loud Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode The Shamen Discography at Discogs Report edited over 4 years ago The Shamen, hounded as they were at the time by the UK press for the infamous Ebeneezer Goode with THAT chorus and along with the general rave culture backlash, never stood a chance at surviving. Between the anti-drugs campaigns, illegal rave crackdowns, they were seen to be exemplars of a dying fad. Techno, rave, house. Gone, bring on the boy bands, girl bands, and manufactured hip-hop, R&B and all that shit. But despite this, they deserve to go down in history as something far, far more than just a relic of a bygone age. Some comparisons with some electronic bands that are often "more recognised": Kraftwerk were hugely influential, but not comparable. They stuck firmly to their stately, gothic electro-pop and rarely deviated.

Very little diversity, and only the merest hints of "dance" genres. The Orb may have been diverse, but only within their distinctly ambient sphere, despite bringing in elements of reggae, dub, techno, house and only much later on, pop. With mixed results. The Prodigy were hardcore through and through. They explored many aspects of the genre, but rarely sought to bring a pop side to it, until their dodgy newer singles in the noughties. The Beloved, perhaps, but too short-lived. New Order? New Wave, rock and pop, but they were never really "techno". Bjork? Well there might be something there, but she is one individual. The Shamen were possibly the most diverse electronic dance BAND to that point, and perhaps still are. Combining many modern electronic genres - done before by others sometimes, certainly - and married them consistently to pop. What is Prince Of Popocatapetl if not ambient pop? It only has two vocal lines, but it is still a pop hook in what is otherwise an ambient song. I Do switches between big-beat and techno as Colin and Victoria sing about Shamanising, to yet more glorious pop hooks.

Human NRG is a pop song set to a breaksy/big-beat (in 1990!) type rhythm. Transamazonia and Destination Eschaton are their takes on trance, set to pop vocal hooks. Obviously their main strides were in techno and rave, but they really were diverse. They have numerous outstanding instrumental achievements as well, as far back as the experimental techno (for the time) piece Evil Is Eden, its lilting, shuffled rhythm predating Schaffel by a decade! Steve Hillage lent support on two beautiful ambient gliss pieces, Scientas and Agua Azul, but crucially they were not pure ambient, they had very memorable little hooks, flute and guitar on Scientas, and Agua Azul awash with a billion synths. And Hempton Manor? How did Colin Angus and Richard West manage to compose such utterly beautiful, truly unique and unmatched melodic techno, house, trance, drum & bass, breaks and ambient all on the same album? There were other groups in the 90s that would dare to be as diverse (FSOL come to mind), but this much? And nowadays? Nope, it is all niches and subgenres, all the way.

I think it is also worth mentioning the massive "culture" of remixes that came about around these guys. Every single is worth picking up, because many producers brought their own talents to Shamen songs and created some superb alternate versions. Including names such as Richie Hawtin, Moby, LTJ Bukem, Frank De Wulf, even Graham Massey! I do not believe any band had been so remixed before, on such a huge scale. The Shamen should be bigger than they are. They should have more influence, greater recognition, for their work merging techno, house, electronica and pop in the 90s. They had a distinct identity - all their music was Shamen Music - but they did not pigeonhole themselves to one genre. They were pop, but they were many modern dance genres as well, and whenever they WANTED to be. And that takes talent. So, no wonder dance music sucks now, eh? Report edited over 9 years ago In terms of commercial success, it's fair enough to say The Shamen released two fine techno-albums of their time - 'En-Tact' and 'Boss Drum'. Sadly, in favour of Mr.

C's irritating raps, this thing basically repeats itself from that (turning) point on. However, many aren't aware of the group's early strengths based on socio-political issues and hard psychedelic fusion of rock and electronics (with samples all over). The Shamen's 'phase one' counts one hell of a subversive collection; albums 'Drop' (1986), 'Strange Day Dreams' (1988), 'In Gorbachev We Trust' plus remixed effort called 'Phorward' (both 1989)... When it comes to religion and its questioning in terms of propaganda destroying much of its spiritual dignity, The Shamen (besides Depeche Mode's 'Blasphemous Rumours') recorded one of the most dangerous pop-songs ever - 'Jesus Loves Amerika' has a killer refrain, it spits out to the ears of hypocrits and with all of its anthemic power. One side of this early phase of the band is as interestingly poppy on acid rock while the other side remains confusingly EBM-ish in its fundamental recognition. Brilliant early years these were... Report edited over 10 years ago Ah, the Shamen.

Made a bold move for a guitar-based band by (slowly) casting off their 60s-influenced psychedelic pop in favour of a more clubland feel, years before Primal Scream et al jumped aboard the bandwagon. Then tragedy struck when Will Sinnott drowned, and their music began to lose its depth as they chased the pop dream. For a while this seemed to work, but the mainstream audience is fickle and when they no longer had the hits, they'd already alienated their more undergound fans and disintegrated rapidly. I suspect that if Sinnott hadn't died, although they would still have had the hits (they were filming the video for "Progen 91" when he died), the Shamen might have kept a better balance between making truly psychedelic and tribal music (as was their stated aim) and simply talking about it while they churned out 3-minute pop songs. Anyone listening to Sinnott's tracks on En-Tact ("Lightspan" and "Evil is Even") can't fail to notice that they're among the best tracks the band ever did.

Report edited over 11 years ago Before becoming a successful - and then cheesy - and then forgetable - rave band, The Shamen were a indie electronic act with political points of views. Forget about the politics (how naive and misinformed we were then!), but what they did on the musical side was rather interesting, in fact much more than the rest of their career, IMO. Of course, "Move any Moutain" truly fitted the spirit of 1990, but their previous semi-hit "Trancendental" (a collaboration with acid House pionneer Bam Bam) was better, in fact, and an EP like "Phorward" was really innovative. With En-tact, things got a bit too cheesy, but some track were still interesting. But with their Boss Drum Lp, The Shamen became really a hit-machine, with fee strikes of creativity ; a kind of KLF without the cynical humor. Lots of production tricks, dull lyrics and top of the pop attitude, it was sad to see them sinking when other acts like Orbital, departing from similar 1990 roots, managed to remain innovative for a whole decade.

Not to mentions groundbreaking people like Lfo or AFX, for example. In fact you can draw a parallel with some others industrial and pre-techno acts that got taken by the techno turmoil, like Greater Than One for instance. But while Lee Newman (RIP) and Michael Wells, at least, remained creative and fun, The Shamen seemed to got "corrupted", and lost it on the way. Maybe it has to do with the death of their first leaded, replaced by Mr C, around that same time ? Maybe it was the ecstasy-goa-gaïa-consciousness bullshit ? Maybe it was simply bad luck. Anyway, their remain the records : Phorward Ep and En-tact are still quite soulful and enjoyable, and, in a way still hold the "naive" spirit of the era. Report edited over 11 years ago Unfortunately for The Shamen, their early history as a credible indie-rave band and their apparently sincere belief in the transformative power of dance music was utterly obliterated by their short reign as Britain's most infamous chart rave band.

After the success of 'Move any Mountain' and 'LSI', both of which were used a lot on television football, the group had a four-week stay at number one with 'Ebeneezer Goode', which became a tabloid sensation when it was pointed out to journalists that the chorus - 'eezer goode, eezer goode, he's Ebeneezer Goode' - was about ecstacy, the popular rave drug. From that point onwards the group were synonymous with naffness, and along with all the other dances acts of the period they faded away to nothing, with a little comeback in 1995 with 'Destination Eschaton'. Just goes to show that if you're on a sinking ship in the freezing waters of the Atlantic, you're going to drown even if you barge your way to the front of the lifeboat. Might as well go down with dignity. Mr C's vocal delivery was very different to that of the late Will Sinott; the latter was low-key and sincere, whereas Mr C was brash and cock-er-nee. Nothing wrong with that, but it didn't seem right for a band which emphasised the contemplative, spiritual side of dance music.

He is now a successful DJ, which is nice to know. 'Boss Drum' remains a decent summary of the state of popular dance music in Britain in 1992, and 'Phorever People' is a lovely ballad. 'En-Tact' sounds quite spartan, but it has a nice remix of 'Hear Me' by Orbital, which has a similar vocal effect to their later 'Halcyon'. BBC - Top of the Pops 2 - Top 5 Drug Songs Contact Us You're not fooling anyone! Five songs that are obviously all about drugs but the artists insist are about fluffy by bunnies and such like... THE SHAMEN 'EBENEEZER GOODE' A cunning one to start. No really. Oh alright, it's bleedin' obvious. The refrain of the song goes "eezer Goode, eezer Goode, he's Ebeneezer Goode". Do you get it? E's are good, you see. Pulp's front man, Jarvis Cocker, was not exactly impressed: "I thought it was a despicable record.

With a clever play on words they covered the fact that they thought E's were good and got it to Number One." Well, it may've made the top spot back in 1993 but they hardly covered their tracks as well as Jarvis might imply. The BBC banned it, the tabloids hounded the band, and they withdrew the single after four tempestuous weeks. Incredibly the band continued to deny it was a song about ecstasy, although the fact that some of their critics thought Goode was spelt with an E as a drugs reference indicates that they really were stretching it a bit. THE STRANGLERS 'GOLDEN BROWN' The Stranglers' album 'La Folie' gave rise to their biggest hit, 'Golden Brown', which made it to No.2 in January of '82. Due to the fact that it's a lovely tune and has got harpsichords in it, it flew beneath the moral majority's radar for a while until some bright spark implied that it was all about heroin consumption and an outraged horde of Daily Mail readers got the Stranglers firmly in their sights.

Happily the lyrics are so impenetrably obscure that no-one could pin anything on them, copper, and a ban was averted. MUSICAL YOUTH 'PASS THE DUTCHIE' Muscial Youth, a group of Jamaican lads from Brummagem recorded this massive No.1 hit single back in the heady days of 1982, and were the darlings of the media. Come on, who could resist, cute kids playing reggae. The tabloids loved them, no-one could get enough. The single spent a wearying 12 weeks on the charts. Unfortunately the songs was actually based on The Mighty Diamonds' 'Pass the Kouchie', Kouchie being Jamaican patois for a pipe full of marijuana. A dutchie, however, was a cooking pot, so no-one realised that the song had drug origins until much later. When the single was at No.1, and the papers had yet to figure it out, it's hard not to imagine the whole of Birmingham in utter hysterics! THE BEATLES 'LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS' Lucy, Sky, Diamonds... LSD...

do you see what he's done there, do you? The Beatles album 'Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' is a classic of acid-soaked nonsense and we all love it to bits. But come on John, mate, who did you think you were fooling? Two weeks after the album came out the band admitted to dropping the odd tab, but given the song's lyrics, the album's psychedelic imagery, and their groovy costumes, pretty much everyone and their auntie had already worked that out. John insisted that the title was a coincidence and he didn't realise until afterwards. Yeah, right. No, really cries John, "my son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it Lucy in the sky with diamonds. Simple. I swear to God, or swear to Mao, or to anybody you like, I had no idea it spelled LSD." No one, and we mean absolutely no-one, ever believed him for one tenth of a second, although his story is corroborated by witnesses, and the venerable Sir Macca.

PETER, PAUL AND MARY 'PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON' Ok, we may be reaching here but puff, eh, puff. Come on, go with it. The magic land of Hanah Lee? Well that's and obvious reference to... um... some druggy thing or other. And Dragons, right, they're obviously something you only see when you're on drugs. Or perhaps in Komodo... Classics: The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode | Pulseradio Classics: The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode Classics: The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode Share Article Classics is a new interview series on Pulse where we take an in depth look at some of the most influential and best loved albums, tracks and mix compilations in electronic music by chatting to their creators. The first edition featured Hybrid's groundbreaking 1999 breakbeat debut, 'Wide Angle'. This time, we go back to the tail end of acid house in 1992 with Richard West, aka Mr. C and frontman of pop group The Shamen, to discuss the band's chart bothering, drug referencing hit 'Ebeneezer Goode'.

Pulse: You first met Colin and Will of The Shamen in 1989? Mr. C: I think it was in ’88 actually at Clink Street [nightclub] in London Bridge. Basically the manager had moved down from Glasgow first to get the band a record and publishing deal and stumbled across acid house - he was coming to parties that I was doing. He got in contact with the boys and said you’re a psychedelic band, you need to check out this new thing called acid house because it’s completely psychedelic. So the boys came down and fell in love with what was going on, they were completely blown away by it. From there they changed The Shamen’s blueprint from psychedelic rock to acid house. So I can imagine it must have been a pretty mind blowing thing for Colin and Will to witness, the acid house scene. It would have been mind blowing for anyone stumbling across something like when it’s already in full swing, as it was for many of the people who became involved in the scene in London. There were people who were into like punk music or disco and they discovered house music and were completely blown away.

For someone like myself it was more of a slow evolution from disco so it wasn’t really such a big bang. I saw the music crossing over from the early 80s before it was even called house music, which came from disco and electronic disco, hip-hop, funk and soul. As well as being a house and techno DJ who was heavily involved in the scene, before then you were a rapper correct? Yes, I started rapping back in 1982 as a street rapper and it was around ’85 that I started hitting the clubs. By ’86 I was getting very well known and I then switched my sound from hip-hop and disco to house music. I started DJing and putting on my own events in ’87 after releasing my first deep house song. How did the first inklings of ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ come about? Had you written lyrics before there was any music? Colin got the idea for the song actually.

We were at a Shamen concert in Kentish Town and there was this guy completely out of his mind on ecstasy and after the performance we were out on the dancefloor getting involved in the crowd, as we always did, and this guy put his hands on Colin’s shoulders and said to him, “E’s are good, e’s are good”. Colin just started laughing, but it obviously stuck in his head and he said to me, Richard I’ve got an idea for a song. I want it to be a rap and for you to write the rap, but the chorus is, “E’s are good, E’s are good, he’s Ebeneezer Goode”. And I’m just laughing at him saying what is all that about then? So he explained that Eezer is an abbreviation of Ebeneezer and that the song needs to be about a guy called Ebeneezer Goode…but it needs to be ambiguous. He wanted the song to also be about ecstasy.

I asked him how I was going to do that and he said all you Londoners drop your ‘H’, so if you do that it will sound like ‘E’ as in “Eee did it, that guy over there,” but it will also mean E as in ecstasy. As soon as he said that, the lightbulb went off in my head and I went away and wrote the verses. I gave them to Colin who took a look, did some editing and gave me some more ideas to make it more colourful. Colin has a far greater vocabulary than me, he’s a bit of an intellectual that one and a genius songwriter. So I went away and wrote more and after a few drafts we had the finished product, the song that everybody knows and loves. It was almost like you were transporting the whole scene and what was happening during that time in London into this one character in the song. It was more than just the scene though. There were actually a bunch of characters who all got silver discs once the song went silver – which is very rare, that a single can go silver.

There was a coupe of guys we knew that were drug dealers, some DJs, a lighting engineer, a sound guy, a roadie, basically a whole bunch of people we knew in real life that we tried to take bits from and make into this one Ebeneezer character. But the song also had to be ambiguous and about ecstasy in the verses, not just the chorus. If you check the verses out, ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ is actually two songs running parallel, which I believe has never been done before. If you take away the letter ‘h’ from the word ‘he’, the verses are all about ecstasy. But if you leave the ‘h’ there then it’s all about this guy Ebeneezer Goode. How did the Beatmasters mix of the song come about? The Beatmasters were doing our single mixes already, so we just went to them and said this is the new single. They were the ones who made our pop singles. The Shamen versions were always a bit more edgy and cult, rather than pop. That was the one that exploded onto the charts, right? Yep, correct. So the track went to #1 on the UK charts and caused quite a stir.

I read that the press hounded you until you withdrew it? No, that’s not true. We did delete the track but it wasn’t because of the press. The song was #1 for 4 weeks from September through to October and basically it was fucking up our release schedule. [Laughs] We wanted to get the ‘Boss Drum’ single out in late October followed by ‘Phorever People’ to compete with the Christmas top 5 placings. If we had let ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ carry on any longer it would have completely messed up the plan. I suppose we could have waited and let it ride out at #1, but it did reach a point where enough was enough for us as a band. Also we were the first band in the history of the British pop charts to delete a single whilst at #1. Sounds like a move very much in the spirit of The KLF. I suppose so. We were obviously a lot bigger than The KLF with our chart placings and sales. I’m not sure if they ever deleted a single whilst being in the top 10. We put posters up all around Britain saying, “Enough is enough, Ebeneezer Goode is now deleted”.

It went from #1 down to #18 or something and then dropped out of the charts altogether because there were no copies left. The song was no doubt worrying the establishment too. Wasn’t all this around the same time that The Sun was running its scare campaign on ecstasy? Yeah, that all began in 1991, but it was still all over the newspapers, like, “Evil acid house band do song about ecstasy,” etcetera. More so from The Star actually, they were really harsh with us. But you know that was all good, I took the piece that The Star did and used it to stuff my cod piece on Top Of The Pops. [Laughs] Funny you mention that, I was going to ask you about that S&M leather outfit you wore on the show. It’s quite something. I also stuffed it with some bad press that we got from Melody Maker. [laughs] I also love how the song went #1 during the BBC’s Drug Awareness Week. That was absolutely brilliant. There were so many synchronicities going on with that song, it was just madness. We did play around a lot with the media too, on radio and television.

Colin and I are very mischievous like that. I’m curious to ask, given the topic of drugs: Do you feel that the scene was at its most hedonistic back then during the acid house period, or has it become more so as time has gone on? I think it was at its most hedonistic in the late 80s. In 1988 the second Summer Of Love was absolutely bonkers, as was 1989. Once it got to 1990 it started to change a little, it all went a bit ravey, noisy, a bit cheesy. In a way it wasn’t as hedonistic, at least for me, but it was for others. I actually think the scene is more hedonistic now than it’s ever been. But in the beginnings it was mad. I mean it’s always been hedonistic but there was a bit of a lull in the early to mid 90s, a lot of dodgy pills floating around. That’s the other thing about ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ – it was a warning song.

“He’s the kind of geezer that must never be abused, he’s very much maligned and misunderstood,” and stuff like this. Were DJs playing it much at all? I can’t imagine they were at the types of club nights you yourself would have been playing at. Or am I wrong? Yeah it was getting played a lot by all sorts of DJs. You have to bear in mind that there were two remixes from Richie Hawtin, one very hard acid version, a more melodic techno version and also a really cool acid house mix from Evil Eddie Richards. So there were lots of alternative and underground version for the clubs. The track obviously made you a lot of money. Were the profits from it what you used to open The End? It wasn’t really the money from ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ it was from the whole ‘Boss Drum’ album. Actually ‘Phorever People’ sold more records than ‘Ebeneezer Goode,’ which was our second biggest selling single. ‘Phorever People’ was bigger even though it only got to #5, but it got to that spot during Christmas week, which means a huge amount of sales.

I’d always said that when I started with The Shamen that any money I made from pop music I’d pump back into the underground and that’s exactly what I did because that’s where my heart is. Once I got my first pay cheque I opened up the Watershed Recording Studio to develop my friends and poor people that don’t have a chance. I also started the Plink Plonk label and the remainder of the money I put into opening The End. I stayed true to my word and didn’t buy a house or a flash car. Would you change anything if you could go back? No, I think it was all pretty perfect. The way we ripped the piss out of the media was hilarious, how we performed on TV was great, the world tours were a lot of fun, the songwriting was genius, the production was great – it was a pretty perfect time for me as someone in their mid-late 20s. It was brilliant. It’s definitely a track that’s going to be a reference point for years to come when people want to describe the era, too. I get people saying to me all the time that they were at home playing the Youtube classics game with their friends and ‘Ebeneeer Goode’ comes up.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention? Yeah there is another story I’d like to tell, it’s fucking hilarious. The first time we performed ‘Ebeneezer Goode’ on Top Of The Pops we were asked not to make the salmon drug reference, so when we were recording the performance, instead of saying “Has anyone got any salmon?” I shouted “Has any got any underlay?”. So all the execs and producers are all worried and are asking me what underlay is and I’m telling them don’t worry, it’s just the black rubber that goes underneath carpet. But they wouldn’t believe me and thought it was a reference to speed, like how Speedy Gonzalez says “Andele Andele!”. Finally they let it go. So the following week I’m being interviewed by Mark Goodyear on BBC Radio 1 during afternoon peak time and he asks me why I didn’t make the reference to salmon [a cockney slang for cigarette]. I told him that I didn’t want to make a reference to the drug nicotine, which kills thousands of people every year from lung cancer, so instead I said underlay.

“What’s underlay?” Goodyear then asks, to which I replied, “Oh, that’s just a rug reference”. The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode HD - YouTube The Shamen - Ebeneezer Goode HD Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Aug 13, 2013 Promo video for Ebeneezer Goode by The Shamen directed by Richard Heslop. The video has been upscaled to HD and restored as much as possible for inclusion on Written by Colin Angus & Richard West A version of the track features on the Boss Drum album on One Little Indian, published by Warner Chappell Music. Video can be found on The Shamen Collection DVD released by One Little Indian. Category

Question: Who had a No 1 in the 90's with Ebeneezer Goode
Answer: The Shamen